Chapter 1

So ... I read a book. Kind of like The Joy of Sex, but Brewing. Beer ... brewing beer. And how did I know about the book?

Across the street there lived a college student.

Nothing unusual, to the west ... across the street was a whole dorm of college girls ... three floors of two to a room college age honeys ... yep ... a dorm of post pubescent women.

And I lived in a house across the street ... I also worked in the connivence store across the cross street to the north ... next to the store was a used to be motel but now was off campus student housing ... rental tended to be to older students and one of those students had music like I’d never heard before ... except on the locally produced university funded college radio FM station.

The disk jocks were from the general student population and the student next door broadcast during same shift as I worked. We pretty much came home at the same time.

We spoke ... and as things progressed ... he offered me a beer. I’m not a fan of American beer ... and since he had never been in the store to buy beer I decided to take a chance.

The bottle had no label and the cap advertised no brand. Hmm?

It was brown and the frost streamed off the dark glass.

“Hold your glass under it when I open it.”

Well ... that was different ... I held as directed. He popped the cap. Popped the cap ... not unscrewed the cap ... with a ‘church key.’

I hadn’t seen a ‘church key’ in years. Beer came in screwtop bottles ... no exceptions. This beer ... this frosty no label plain capped brew didn’t twist ... it pried ... like the last expensive English brew I’d had years ago.

He pried ... the foam dripped into my glass and then I tilted the glass.

“You ain’t completely useless,” he said and he poured the foaming brew into my tilted glass. My nose was assailed with the odors of malted barley, hops and yeast.

A taste.

A sip.

A swallow.

A glug.

I was in love.

He grinned...”Brewed it two weeks ago. First bottle. What do you think?”